Woke up early today to make bed.
Avoided second radiation does by
insisting I had it done--
to about 4 people.
Being fitted for more equipment.
Got put on duty to unload truck
and make name plates.
A little time to organize locker.
Actually at 2:45, they've left us alone
since lunch. Started longer letter
to [fiance], finish it on fire watch.
--BREAK--
6 MAY 88 Friday continued
Up at 5:00 [a.m.] Still eating good
food only--no Hostess!
Name tags. Dress picture w/breakaway
dress uniforms. First victory over
Army bureaucracy--got to avoid
another panographic x-ray.
Time in afternoon and evening--
studied SMART book, stamped clothing,
finally called [fiance]. Happy to hear her
voice, sad to be apart. Expected
graduation JUL 5-8. Sent mom
Mothers Day card. Hope she's not worried.
Fire duty 0200-0300. Time to
write. Sleep until 0600 on weekends.
Totally out of touch with world.
Funny, didn't realize it until [fiance] asked
if I heard any news. Good news--
all As. Got job in History Department at higher
salary--hope I don't have to teach.
Financial Aid fucked up a little. Cutting
jokes after lights out. Will lead to
trouble I'm sure until we're too
tired to fuck around like that. Some
have loud mouths. most seem OK men.
Ironically, getting a little weaker--
no time to exercise (i.e. push ups). Started
doing them on own time--did 80 today.
Far cry from 200/day I did at home.
Fitted for glasses today--amazing
bureaucracy--brought own prescription
for glasses but MEPS redid exam,
as did LW [Leonard Wood]. How fucked up.
Wow. I sure wrote a lot. This just highlights the fact that we really weren't in basic training yet. Heck, they stopped even keeping us that busy with Mickey Mouse work details. Nice to see that I was stubborn enough to fight the Green Machine bureaucracy over the x-ray issue rather than just go along with the flow. In general you want to avoid drawing attention to yourself. But like I said, I wasn't really in basic training yet. Making waves--within reason, of course--at this part of the base wouldn't follow me to the drill sergeants.
I didn't mention anything about the glasses, but they were the awful "birth control" glasses (no woman would let you touch her if you were wearing them) that only recently died a needed death.
And the break-away uniform is the one I'm wearing on the first page of this series of posts. If you wonder why I looked so miserable, this is why. I wasn't busy enough yet to take my mind off the anticipation of misery.
Also, I first used military time in my journal rather than civilian time. I was already used to using military dates.
Oh, and I was swearing more freely. That was just part of the toughening up. Now that I'm a dad, I've cleaned up my language a lot and basically don't swear when I'm with my children. Certainly no f-bomb. But that would become a noun, verb, adjective, adverb--and possibly a prepositional phrase for all I know--for the next couple months.
The first weekend in the Army was beginning.
